


The Final Job

by amillionand1fandoms



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Gen, Kind of dark, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies, The Leverage team is awesome, Well not so much kind of dark, as really dark, especially Eliot and Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 14:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2471663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amillionand1fandoms/pseuds/amillionand1fandoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The police report says accident, of course, but none of them believe for even a second that it actually was. Then again, they are thieves through and through and when you’re a thief you’re never actually paranoid. After all, it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you."<br/>In which the people in the Black Book are not taking any chances with letting that information get loose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Final Job

All she’s ever wanted was a happy ending and no matter how bad it got, somewhere, deep inside, a tiny part of her had always believed she’d get one. Maybe that’s a little crazy, but no one’s ever accused Parker of being sane. She had been certain she’d had it, too. With Nate and Sophie and Eliot and Hardison she’d finally had a place and a family and everything she’d never had but always hoped for and she’d been so certain that her happy ending had been right there. Now, bleeding to death, alone in the middle of a cemetery, she supposes a happy middle is better than nothing.

 

They get Nate and Sophie first, with what looks like a “car accident” only it really really isn’t.

It is, however, a Small Mercy, according to a drunk and sobbing Hardison, because Nate couldn’t have taken it, seeing one of them murdered; not after losing his son. And Sophie was always the softest of the bunch, softer even than Alec who makes Parker kill spiders for him. The police report says accident, of course, but none of them believe for even a second that it actually was. Then again, they are thieves through and through and when you’re a thief you’re never actually paranoid. After all, it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

 

They’re not even bothering with subtlety the second time and they blow up an entire floor gunning for Eliot. Except Hardison went there first, looking for the hitter, and they bury and empty casket next to Nate and Sophie. Two weeks later they both receive an email from Hardison’s account labeled “The Black Book” and they understand what it means. Eliot and Parker were always the ones who could make the hard choices and there’s no crying as they shake hands over a marble tombstone and walk their separate ways. Because together they would be a force to be reckoned with, but apart they have nothing to lose. 

 

They underestimate her at first, certain the reason they can't find her is that she's run and hid. They assume that Eliot is the only one killing their people, and they forget that the only difference between thief and assassin is intent.

Eventually they realize, and by then it’s too late to matter; they can’t stop her. They can’t predict her, because they don’t understand her insane logic. They can’t hide from her, because she’s spent a lifetime robbing blind the very people they hide behind. They can’t catch her, because she’s already been on the run from nearly every agency known to man. They can find her, but only when it's too late.

(Nate could have stopped her, counteracted every move she made before she made it, but he's dead now and dead men can't stop anything.)

They stop assuming she's harmless, a mere cat burglar and instead whisper of undetectable assassins and knives in the darkness. They once again presume to know her intentions and in the panic no one notices that the dead men are missing documents and evidence they shouldn't have had in the first place.

 

She’s not there when Eliot dies, and so she suspects she’ll never know what truly happened, but the bloody trail he’s been leading around the world–parallel and crisscrossing with her own–suddenly stops and she knows. When she finally goes looking all she finds is an autopsy report for a John Doe with pictures of an Eliot Spencer and a police report on a warehouse fire. She goes back home and adds a fourth tombstone to the line of three. Not even a week later she comes back and adds a fifth, because she realizes that now there’s no one else who will know to add hers and she doesn’t want to be left out of the best family she’s ever had, not even in death.

 

They’ll find a body, sometime in the future, curled up at the foot of the headstone, clutching a stuffed bunny stained red with her own blood. Cold and blue and drenched in red, but smiling because they're too late and she already won.

Eventually the police will identify her, but they won’t find her murderer, and even the local newspapers won't mention it. Instead headlines will scream about conspiracies and corrupt officials and list every name on that accursed black book. Talk shows will muse about how every news agency in DC woke this morning and found a USB in a white envelope sitting on their floor, with “checkmate” written on it in red sharpie, but not a single sign of a break-in. The internet will be abuzz with speculation on how they could have not known about something of this magnitude and no one will think twice about a Jane Doe found dead in a cemetery. But that's how she would have wanted it.

That's how she planned it.

 

And eventually all that will be left of the world's best thief will be four words on an otherwise empty slab of stone. Four simple words chosen with the utmost care by someone who knows they’re already as good as dead.

Parker  
She was loved


End file.
